“Oh!” she said softly, and there was a great smashing as man and beast reeled through a brake on the other side.

“Yes,” said Seaforth, “it was a tolerably risky thing, but it takes a good deal to turn Harry.  Where’s Nellie Townshead now?”

“There,” said Miss Deringham, instinctively clenching her bridle.  “Surely the girl cannot be going to try it.”

“Good Lord!” said Seaforth under his breath, and the second figure rushed with streaming skirt and hair at the gap cleared by Alton’s passage.

Then the man turned his head, and it was a moment before he looked round again, very white in face.  “Thank Heaven!” he said hoarsely.  “She’s over.”

Miss Deringham glanced at him curiously, and then laughed a little.  “Miss Townshead is evidently a determined young woman,” she said, with something in her manner which led Seaforth to fancy that this was not intended as a compliment.  “But what is Mr. Alton doing?”

“Getting the rope ready,” said Seaforth.  “It’s scarcely used in this country, but Harry once did some stock-riding on the prairie.  We’ll push on a little.”

It became evident as they did so that the position favoured the pursuers now.  A rock it was apparently incapable of climbing prevented the flight of the steer in one direction, and Miss Townshead had ridden forward ready to turn the beast if it attempted escape in another.  It stopped with lowered head as though meditating an onslaught upon her, then wheeled again and came back towards Alton, who rose a trifle in his stirrups, whirling the rope about his head.  It shot forward presently, uncoiling in a curve, and then the man swung backwards, wheeling his horse, and there was a crash as the steer went down amidst the fern.

“That should take a good deal of the friskiness out of it,” said Seaforth.  “We’ll go across and join them.  There’s a way over somewhere.”

The steer was roped to a tree when they came up with the pair, and Seaforth noticed with some inward amusement the way in which the two girls glanced at each other, and the contrast between them.  Miss Deringham was almost too serene, and, he fancied, might have stepped out of a picture.  Miss Townshead’s cheeks were crimson, her skirt was rent, and, though she had evidently found opportunity to effect some alteration, loose wisps of hair still hung about her shoulders.  They were, however, of a fine silky brown, and it seemed to Seaforth, might have been arranged in a more unbecoming fashion.

“I wonder if I might venture to congratulate you.  We seldom witness horsemanship of this description in England,” said Miss Deringham, with an inflection in her voice which Seaforth guessed the meaning of, and seemed to bring a slightly warmer tinge into the already carmine cheeks of the girl.

Still, she looked at the speaker with a little smile.  “There is a difference between the two countries, and the scarcity of dollars in this one explains a good deal,” she said.